I am considering growing a couple passion vines up a couple of ornamental Bradford Pear
trees I have in my backyard. I don't really like or want the pear trees long-term, but I want to make use of them for while I have them. I was wondering if anyone here has tried or heard of good ways to do this. Let me explain what I have so far and what I'm thinking.
I have planted one vine already along the
drip line of one of the pear trees (right in picture below). I planted a 10' long strong bamboo pole to help it climb to the tree limbs above it, along with a few extra to help reinforce the structure and
feed into that main pole. I have been thinking of using some rope or other material to secure on the limbs and let drape down to be caught by the vine. At this location, the lower limb is only about a foot or less away from the top of the pole, so perhaps just allowing it to climb into the tree from the pole would not require any other support.
In the location I will possibly place the second passion vine, the tree is about 8 feet out from a shed. Here the distance the vine would have to climb is closer to 15'.
Here is an illustration showing the spacial relationships, and the red X's being where each vine would first hit "branch" above it:
My idea of how things will go once the vine gets into the tree is that it will primarily climb up and out along the south facing edge of the tree. In addition to creating a sort of wall of shade up to the tree at that spot, I was thinking since passion fruit is mainly ripe when it falls, I would walk around underneath the tree to collect the fruit. I'm sure it will be that easy.
Thanks for any advice!
-Noah